InTheCapital

DC Entrepreneurs Talk Challenges and Solutions For Region

by Charlie Warzel / @cwarzel

Hot, crowded, long, and definitely inspiring. That’s how we’d describe last night’s Ideas Summit, which kicked off Startup America Partnerships‘ launch of  the DC region. After nearly four hours of lightning talks, panels, and networking here’s our recap of the evening. We’re dedicating our own post to White House CTO, Aneesh Chopra’s Keynote address, which will follow this afternoon.

The Three Goals…

The goals of the Startup DC were laid out neatly at the beginning of the event and we believe they’re important enough to be listed first here. To really strive to integrate the startups in our region, which includes integration across the Maryland and Virginia regions as well. To build an organization of entrepreneurs that focuses on what startups and innovators actually need. Lastly, to focus on what the DC region is actually innately good at.

The Highlights…

We get that you guys are all quite busy, which is why we’re giving you the highlights from the nearly four hours of discussion and panels.

Amy Millman, President of Springboard Enterprises shed light on women in startups in the DC region (something we love to celebrate here at InTheCapital):

“What we have here is human capital, but we don’t connect it. There are more women entrepreneurs per square inch here than anywhere else. As soon as everybody realizes that we’ve built this ecosystem I’m not certain we will have to go step outside the region for resources.”

Glen Hellman, Principal at Driven Forward LLC raised concerns about the challenges that the DMV regions provide for entrepreneurs and the lure of the federal government:

“You’ve got three jurisdictions here. Competing against each other. The federal government is a wonderful thing and a curse…your developer doesn’t care about stock options they care about getting time and money to do the work they want to do and the government can provide that.”

Doug Humphrey, Legendary Tech Exec and Serial Entrepreneur changed the tone of the evening addressing ‘emotional infrastructure’ in startups:

“If you are an entrepreneur you understand risks but not really fear…As a CEO you’re always alone. Every soul in your company is on your soul…you bury your fear and don’t show it, don’t talk about it.”

Humphrey mentioned the need for entrepreneurs to find an “emotional and mental community.” If there is one thing DC tech is good at, it’s community building.

DC Has The Momentum, Baby…

In a panel discussion, Jonathon Perrelli and Jonathan Aberman had some choice soundbytes about DC’s entrepreneurial environment. Here they are below:

Aberman: “There is unbelievable energy coming out of DC. There is more wealth here than anywhere in the country.”

Perrelli: “In the 1990s here, the movement was top-down, but what we are seeing in the past few years is that this is happening bottom-up.”

Advice from Perrelli: If you have a good idea ”grow a pair and start a company. The money will come.”

What’s Missing from the entrepreneur ecosystem in DC?

Perrelli: “Check writers. We’re missing check writers. If you’ve made an exit and made money you have an obligation to give back and write checks.”

For us at InTheCapital, we couldn’t be more excited by the ideas and concerns shared by some of DC’s most vocal entrepreneurs and developers. As we continue to grow and foster discussion in DC’s innovation community we hope that events like last night’s Ideas Summit can happen every single day at InTheCapital. We hope you’ll join us as we continue to tell the stories of success and failures of innovation in this region.